This application is related to U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,110, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates generally to multiconductor terminating apparatus and particularly to apparatus for terminating ribbon cable to an electrical connector having two rows of terminals.
The advent of ribbon cable, which is now widely used in the electrical industry, has resulted in a variety of connectors and terminating apparatus adapted therefor. One approach has been to utilize connectors having two staggered rows of insulation displacing terminals spaced so that the terminals in one row will terminate alternate conductors in the cable, while the remaining conductors pass between those terminals and are terminated to the terminals in the other row. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,068,912. The connector is either applied to the cable by an apparatus as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,540, or the cable is applied to the connector by an apparatus as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,005,518. Connectors disclosed in the above cited patents generally comprise two or more parts which are engaged by the apparatus adapted therefor to achieve termination. For another example of connectors of this type see U.S. Pat. No. 3,820,055. The aforementioned are connectors of the type having two rows of terminals with mating ends opposite the cable terminating ends, the mating ends being mateable to pins or mating connectors by movement laterally of the axis of the ribbon cable.
A current generation of connectors utilizes two rows of terminals mateable by movement parallel to the axis of the ribbon cable. Wire terminating ends of one row of terminals face oppositely from wire terminating ends of the other row of terminals. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,243,288, which is hereby incorporated by reference; this connector will be used to demonstrate the utility of the present invention in its preferred embodiment. As the center to center spacing of conductors in a ribbon cable is less than has been found practical for terminals in a connector, one approach to terminating ribbon cable to connectors of this type is to spread pre-split conductors by means of a template for termination to terminals in one side of the connector. See apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,125,137. In order to terminate to both sides of the connector with an apparatus of this type, two cables would have to be terminated in separate operations.
Introduction of connectors of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,243,288 presented the need for an apparatus which could position the pre-split conductors of a ribbon cable into two planes and also position the conductors in each plane as necessary and in one operation terminate the conductors to insulation displacing terminals in opposite faces of the connector. U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,110 which is incorporated by reference, discloses an apparatus which performs these operations. This apparatus comprises a carriage mounted programming station, a conductor wiping probe, and a terminating station. The programming station comprises a pair of opposed comb members which cooperate with a pair of templates for initial wire positioning. The programming station is guided by a cam track to move in two directions relative to the stationary wiping probe and terminating station to achieve the desired position for termination.